Casino jobs a boon to those leaving welfare

Friday, Dec. 24, 1999 | 9:35 a.m.

For the past several months, MGM Grand Detroit, MotorCity and Greektown casinos have been showing up at job fairs and working with welfare job-placement companies in locating employees.

Among them: Michelle Splunge, a 29-year-old Detroit mother of five who once was on welfare but now works at MGM Grand as a service attendant at its upscale restaurant, the Hollywood Brown Derby.

It's work she found about six months ago - and far different from her previous jobs as a nursing aide and putting roofs on cars.

"I like it a lot. You get to see different people. It's cool," said Ms. Splunge, whose only help these days from the state comes in food stamps.

In Detroit, 51 percent of the casinos' workforces must be city residents, the Detroit Free Press reported Friday. But finding out how many employees are former welfare recipients is difficult.

At MGM Grand, spokesman Bob Berg said about 375 of the 3,000 employees were hired through the city's Department of Employment and Training and are classified as economically disadvantaged.

FIA directors at some of the Wayne County offices said many welfare recipients who applied for jobs at the casinos didn't pass the extensive background checks. Casinos require workers to have no felonies or credit problems and often require applicants to pass a drug test.

But in counties that have had casinos longer than Wayne County, some officials say the casinos have brought welfare rolls down.

"They do provide a great number of jobs, both unskilled jobs and skilled jobs," said Judith Friday, director of the Family Independence Agency in Isabella County, home to the Soaring Eagle Casino and Resort in Mount Pleasant.

Last week at a tribal casino near Watersmeet in the Upper Peninsula's Gogebic County just north of the Wisconsin border, state FIA Director Douglas Howard held a ceremony honoring a casino worker - a blackjack dealer - as a welfare success story.

The average family of three on welfare earns $5,508 a year, in addition to food stamps. The average Detroit welfare recipient who finds work through the state's Work First job search program earns $6.82 an hour.

Welfare recipients who have found jobs through Ross Innovative Employment Solutions - a Work First program - are making $6.75 to $13.46 an hour, as well as tips in many jobs, depending on the position and casino, said Keith Franklin, Ross' program director.

"If you think about someone who (cleans tables), at the MotorCity Casino they're making $9 an hour," Franklin said. "That's higher than working at a general restaurant."

Greektown's average full-time employee will make $26,000 a year plus benefits, said Norm Howard, vice president of human resources at the planned Greektown Casino.

That yet-to-be-opened gambling hall is offering life skills courses for employees that teach money management and health. Some of the jobs - including blackjack dealers - do not require a high school diploma.

"You only need mastery of eighth-grade math. You need to be willing to come in and learn, and project your personality well and provide superior guest service," Howard said. "If you can do those things, we will train people to be dealers."